“The 2017 meeting of the Modernist Studies Association will not only take place on the centenary of one of Modernism’s many anni mirabiles, it will also be located in the city renowned for Rembrandt and Spinoza as well as De Stijl and the Amsterdamse School, a city well-known for its daring and usually successful blending of the historical and the modern. We will use this occasion to tackle head-on Modernism’s relation to our present. What does Modernism mean to us today – to us as cultural consumers, as scholarly observers, and as active participants in its projects? Modernism’s own explicit self-identification with the ever-shifting present – “il faut ętre absolument moderne”, “make it new”, etc. – has always tugged at its historical moorings and resisted standard attempts at periodization. It has challenged us repeatedly to redefine and reconsider the meaning of the term “modernism,” as well as to engage in endless debates about its scope, its internal coherence, and its purview."